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Nature Close Up

I'm feeling a bit better today, and hope to be back to what is normal (for me) tomorrow. I need to get back to quilting on Monday. I lost 3 days quilting with being sick this week.

Here are a few photos I took with the macro setting on my digital camera back on July 4th. The photo above is a small bush in our front yard. I don't know the name of it, but I love the color. Evidently some bugs like this plant, too, from the looks of the chewed leaves.

This photo is some rain drops that collected on a leaf of one of our sedum plants.

This is the tip of a yew branch.

I think they could make some interesting quilts for the "Color and Composition" book I have been working through.

I removed my old zippers yesterday and completed attaching my new zippers. Along the way I made 2 additional sets of zipper leaders so I have the ability to have 3 quilts ready to zip on if I need to.

As promised, I took photos of the steps and will post them in stages. These directions are my own and you may be able to find other instructions out the internet. This is something I came up with on trial and error.

The first set of zipper leaders I made were with garment zipper that you buy by the yard at a fabric store. They didn't work out the way I wanted. They kept separating on their own. So now I have 8 yards of zipper to use in other projects.

First off you'll need some materials and supplies.

1. Canvas Duck - I purchased 4 yards of 60" wide canvas so I wouldn't have to seam the leaders. This is enough to make 5 sets of 2 leaders. Buy the length to match the length of your zippers.

2. Separating Zippers in the size of your choice - I purchased 144" long zippers f…

I have been designing quilting patterns for use with computerized quilting machines as well as with hand-guided machines. This is one of my latest designs. Since I don't have a computerized machine myself, I design patterns that can be used with or without a computerized machine.

This particular design is one that I have used with my longarm machine and looks really good in wholecloth quilts or in alternate blocks in pieced quilts.